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Thursday, August 08, 2013

Kittens

"Why is it," Charlie says,
"that when you think someone is mysterious it just turns out
they're an ass?"

"Because everyone is one?" I
crouch down, playing a flashlight under a dumpster someone has
spraypainted 'No Babies!' on in bright yellow. I hope she's referring
to that, but expectation says it's probably me.

"You are a magician. Using a
flashlight."

"It's a tool." I shove
another bag of garbage toward her; she pulls it aside with a grunt.

"You could break the lock on the
dumpster and we could throw all this in it."

"I could." I pull a piece of
worn paper from my pocket as a low growl echoes from under the
dumpster.

"You said we were looking for a
lost cat."

"We are."

"That was a growl."

I hold out my left hand, paper and
flashlight in my right. "You've been missing two weeks, Flutter.
I'd run away at being named Flutter myself but you fell off a porch
into the woods and got lost."

A low hiss answers me.

"It's always hard to find home
again if you're never sure it was home at all. But they offered a
reward for you, kitten, and even let a magician try and find out.
Most people don't even let themselves believe in magicians anymore."

"Smart of them," Charlie
mutters.

The kitten slips out from under the
dumpster as if she had always meant to. Matted fur, some minor cuts
and scrapes, thin and burning with anger. Flutter yowls up at me with
the fierceness of a hunter and lets out a low hiss at seeing Charlie.

"She's not going to eat you."

The cats head snaps back to me.

"Why would I eat a kitten?"
Charlie says through gritted-teeth calm.

"You ate a god. As far as cats are
concerned, they're one step up from that."

Charlie says nothing to that; Flutter
lets out a happier yowl and nudges my leg before leaping up into my
left hand as I stand. We walk out of the back street into a light
rain that doesn't touch me because I walk between the drops and
doesn't reach Charlie because it wouldn't dare to.

It is only two blocks to the home
Flutter was lost from; I take the long way around because even
kittens – especially kittens – have their pride. Jody's father
lets me into their building, his daughter yanking Flutter from me
with a squeal of pure joy that reminds me of payment. He hands over
the twentiees reluctantly, gaze searching mine, but Charlie's
simmering anger is enough to push his questions aside.

I hand over half the money as we walk
outside, only half surprised to find a police officer waiting for us.
We've been in town over a day: I was a little surprised it had taken
them this long to show up.

"Madeline Sharp." She hands
over her ID as if expecting us to doubt her. "You've rescused
four animals in the past seven hours, mister ....?"

I offer up my name and Charlie's as
well. "We hardly stole them."

"Even so. People are talking."

"That is what makes us people."

"Does it now?" She doesn't
lower her hand to her nightstick but her eyes offer up a small
glimpse of things seen and never named, reports never written up.

"A magician is still human. Some
of the time," I add. "And Charlie is mostly human."

"Most god-eaters devour a god; you
merged with one. I told you it was dangerous to call up the god since
it would become harder to put it down. Easier to be angry, and even
easier to give into power."

"Is that why I'm travelling with
you? So you can bind me if you have to?"

"A magician doesn't need anyone."
I let the rain touch me, not looking over. "You didn't see it
like that when we first met. I worked magic, and you saw someone in
need of a shave and not a miracle at all. The magic in me doesn't
need you; the rest of me does."

She laughs, half in surprise. "You
think I am going to help you
stay human?"

"Oh,
no." I look over and smile. "It's far too late for that. I
could make it so it never rained in this town again, or no pets were
lost at all. I've terrified people by saving them, Charlie, and if
you scare them they are less scared of me. That's one thing. And you
can tell me when I go too far. Magic isn't power but from the outside
it's easy to ignore that; sometimes from the inside as well. And,"
I add before she can speak, "there is not a magician in the
world that doesn't desire an audience."

Charlie doesn't ask
if Flutter would have come out if she hadn't scared the kitten more
than I did, or point out I'm not telling the whole truth at all. She
just digs the keys to the motel out of her pocket. "Get our
stuff: I'll settle up with the staff."

"As you wish,"
I say with a courtly bow, and slip inside before she can find
something to throw at me, having circled more than enough truths for
one night and feeling strangely light on my feet as I head to grab
our meagre belongings.

Being a magician is
always more than being a magician, and sometimes only friends can
remind us of that.

A collection of miscellany

Condoms will break, but I can assure you that vows of abstinence will break more easily than condoms.

- Dr. Joycelyn Elders

In fantasy, impossible things exist. In science fiction, impossible things exist and can be understood by humans. In supernatural horror, impossible things exist and cannot live in peace with humans.

- Will Shetterly

We are living in a time when you can believe anything, as long as you do not claim it to be true.

- Ravi Zacharia

Religion teaches the dangerous nonsense that death is not the end.

- Richard Dawkins

In the time of harmony the golden age is not in the past, it is in the future

- Paul Signac

"No" is the wildest word in the English language.

- Emily Dickinson

The middle ground between genuinely true and outright faking is unconscious delusion.

- Dean Radin

“You have to surrender to your mediocrity, and just write. Because it’s hard, really hard, to write even a crappy book. But it’s better to write a book that kind of sucks rather than no book at all, as you wait around to magically become Faulkner. No one is going to write your book for you and you can’t write anybody’s book but your own.”